Post Script
by strikingtwelves
Summary: It was going to happen. And she was either going to see him die, or wait for him every Wednesday that came after, not knowing. Never knowing. And there were words that still needed saying. Nothing will be left unsaid. Not this time. (He's made that mistake before.) / an 11/Clara, one shot. Slightly AU. Set before, during, and after the events of The Time of the Doctor.


**Author's Note: **This fan fic was originally posted on a separate account I made when I momentarily forgot the password to this one. The title was, "A Proper Goodbye", but I've since recovered the password, and decided to post that same one shot here (making some choice revisions, of course, as the original draft was written four months ago). I've got people who can testify to this, just in case any of you were planning to report me for "plagiarism".

I've missed you guys.

The last time I posted anything on this website was _a year ago_, and I am truthfully sorry to anyone who has been tuning in to my stuff. I can't promise to update regularly, but what I can assure you is that this account will stay active should any of you feel like re-reading my stories again.

(That sounded really narcissistic. I'm sorry.)

Anyway, I hope you like this short-ish one shot!

* * *

_**post scriptum  
**latin, noun: "after writing"  
_abbreviated as "p.s.", typically occurs at the  
very end of a letter, usually as an afterthought

* * *

He can't sleep.

Well, technically, he _can_, but tonight (and all the other nights this past week), he finds himself incapable of sleeping.

He'd close his eyes and drift off for a minute or two, and then wake up right before it really sinks in. He'd sit up from his bed, tinker with his Sonic, stand on his head, recalibrate the TARDIS, change the desktop (only to change it back again), then plop back on his bed, hoping he'd done enough to actually get some this time.

He doesn't.

He's tired, certainly, but he _still can't sleep_, and he is so bewildered by the fact that it's possible to contradict yourself like that. The Universe just can't give him a break, can it?

Seven nights in a row and the Doctor hasn't had one wink of proper sleep. (Granted, Time Lords don't need sleep as much as humans do, but they only usually go around three to four nights without it.) By the time he's reached the eighth, he wonders why he even bothered.

Just in his dress shirt and the trousers he had on this morning, he slips on a pair of fuzzy slippers and exits his room, resolving to wander about the TARDIS to keep himself busy: find something that needs fixing; do a bit of cleaning up along the way; maybe visit the library for a good old dusting. He hasn't been there in a while, he realizes. Clara has made it clear that that part of the ship was hers now – especially claiming that spot in the corner as her study – even though the TARDIS would always throw her off by changing where it was every now and again.

Never stopped her, though. She always found it in the end.

_Clara._

That's what's been keeping him awake.

He has been thinking about her a lot lately, more often now after his encounter with his past selves, and his thoughts have been restlessly humming about his head, his hearts heavy with the burden of an untold truth.

This is his last body.

This – this version of him – this is _it_, and he's gone. For good.

He's had over a millennium to come to terms with the process – different bodies leading the same, complicated life – but every time, it's still as difficult. Every time he'd tread dangerously close to death, he's had to witness a part of him slip away with everything that came with it, and really, he's the same man, but he _isn't. _A simple enough complexity in his anatomy, and he's a walking contradiction, anyway.

There were times, of course, when dying did not mean losing. He has saved lives by giving his own before, making the process worth it in the end. But twelve regenerations later and here he is, still not having it any easier. Twelve Doctors and there wasn't going to be a thirteenth.

And then there's Clara.

Brave, smart, _beautiful _Clara.

And she was either going to see him die_,_ or wait for him _every Wednesday _that came after, not knowing. Never knowing.

Sometimes, when the walls weren't as strong, he'd catch her crying – one time, after she sacrificed the most important leaf in human history to save a strange man she barely even knew; another time, when she thought he was going to die in Trenzalore – and every single time, the sight would _break _him, further strengthening his resolve to never have to see Clara Oswald cry ever again.

(The very thought of being the cause of her tears sends a clenched fist directly to the wall. The TARDIS bellows in concern.)

He doesn't know how, or when. He hasn't worked out all the details himself, and really, what good did knowing where do him? (On the fields of Trenzalore

What he does know, though, is that it is undoubtedly, _inevitably_ going to happen, and that there were words (truths) that still needed saying.

Nothing will be left unsaid.

Not this time. (He's made that mistake before.)

* * *

He's sleeping now.

It was difficult to finally get him to rest. His entire body was burning up, and his hearts were erratically thumping against his chest. She took a towel and had it run under the tap, squeezing the water out and folding it to put on his head. He'd been talking _nonstop _since his transformation, and she's had to shush him multiple times to get him to finally shut up. She held his hand throughout the entire thing; until his breathing evened; until the grip he had on her hand relaxed in her palm.

It had been trickier than usual. Taking longer than the average regeneration process, he had told her, but he was going to be fine.

He promised he would be.

It was _weird_, seeing him change… seeing this version of him that's _him _but not really him. The Doctor, but not _her _Doctor. She genuinely doesn't know how she is supposed to go about this now. She doesn't know what to think, or feel.

He's different. _This Doctor_ is different. A different face, different body, different accent. He looks a little older than his past self and acts a littler older as well. He doesn't talk like him, doesn't feel like him, and she knows while this is still the same strange man who knocked on her door dressed as a monk all those years ago, he was _never _going to be him. _The Eleventh_.

The Eleventh did not have eyebrows. The Eleventh was too tall. The Eleventh had the most conspicuous of chins and ears that looked like rocket fins.

But the Doctor is still _alive_ (when really, he shouldn't be), and she finds that that was enough. (_He was enough. More than enough._)

Because she's aware she's like this now, and it's probably going to take a while, but she is certain she is going to love him anyway, the way she loved all the previous Doctors before him. He is going to be wonderful and magical and he is still going to be _him_, even without the bow tie.

"Even without the bow tie," she tells herself, slowly and repeatedly, like a mantra. "Even without the bow tie."

Feeling slightly better, she looks him over one last time before leaving his bedside and heading for the control room. Successfully not getting lost this time (which was a first), she walks up the steps and circles the console, gingerly skimming through the buttons before deciding to take a seat on the couch. Seconds later, she feels the TARDIS settle in for landing, the familiar, pompous _thud _resonating within the room like a siren. Confused, she gets up and walks to the door, pushing it open to reveal that they've landed in front of her complex, on the same spot he had parked the TARDIS just a few hours before.

The sun had just set, the lampposts flickering on as the last of the orange light disappears into the horizon. She knows her family is probably still in her apartment waiting for her, and probably (most likely, she's very sure) not in the best of moods, but she doesn't feel like explaining herself to them today, not after everything that has happened. Resigned, she closes the door behind her and walks back to her seat, pulling her legs close to her body in an attempt to hold it together; to fight that ache in her chest that returned and with much more vigor than she wished.

"_Clara, if you're seeing this, and I hope you don't have to, but_… __but if you are_… seeing this now, it most likely means __that I'm gone, and that I'm never coming back."_

That voice – she'd recognize it anywhere. Slowly lifting her head up to see, a hologram of the old Doctor was now projected in front of her, looking to the space above where she was seated.

He looked exactly like how she remembered (not like it was too long ago for her to forget (not like she was _ever _going to forget)), except he looked a bit more tired now than she had seen him last. His hair disheveled, dress shirt messily tucked in his trousers, his bow tie undone around his collar… he looked very worn, and very upset, but whatever this was, and whatever purpose it was supposed to serve, she wanted to believe, for just a second, that he was real.

"_You've seen me. All of me. All twelve faces. And you know me, better than anyone. My Clara."_

She makes the mistake of looking at his eyes. They were older, and much, much more _sadder_, and she feels that ache in her chest beginning to rip at the edges, making everything more unbearable than it already was.

"_The thing with regeneration… it has a limit. All Time Lords are only allowed twelve regenerations and I'm afraid_… _I'm afraid I've hit my last."_

"_You've met the Warrior, and while I didn't call myself the Doctor then, he was still me, and he counts. The Doctor that came before me regenerated twice, counting this_," he gestures to himself,_ "as my thirteenth and final body."_

He clasps his hands in front of him, seeming to find the words to make his point. His eyes fall to his feet, and he speaks, in just above a whisper.

"_When I die, there won't be another."_

She knows this. He's told her before, back in Christmas, but he looks as if they've never had this conversation, and the effect is still the same. He says these words with certainty, like they were final and irrevocable, like a man's last words.

"_I don't know how it's going to happen. I haven't got the slightest clue. It could happen anytime, Clara, and you could be there to see it, or not be there and never know. Either way, I wasn't going to risk it."_

"_I've rerouted the TARDIS to materialise back in your apartment should anything happen to me. You've got to trust her. She will know when to show this to you. She's got a timing of her own, this clever little thing,"_ he trails off, looking at the console, his mouth stretching into a fond smile. _"Besides, this ship has taken a liking to you, Clara Oswald. And quite right, too! I knew it was only a matter of time…"_ He grins.

_"Anyway, the TARDIS won't stay for long. She will show you this message and return to me immediately after. Don't get in with her. I know you'll try, but she won't let you."_

"You make it sound like it's going to happen," she tells him, despite knowing full-well she wasn't going to get a reply. "You make it sound like you can't escape it, when you _did. _You did and you're alive and this just doesn't make any _sense_, Doctor–."

"_I couldn't sleep tonight. It had only been a little over a week since I met my past regenerations and I… I counted today. I counted the lives that I lived and the lives that I lost and I never thought I was going to stop counting."_

This was recorded before Christmas, she realizes, before they found Gallifrey. He couldn't have known then that the Time Lords survived; that he was offered a new beginning, and for her sake, he was just planning in advance.

Something Clara hasn't seen him done, ever.

"_I've always imagined it happening, death. Dreamed of it, even. There was something about the finality of the word that relieved me, however somber that may sound. If you've lived for as long as I have, eventually you are going to want it, giving up. Wait out the years 'til you wither out and grow sour, and I was about to, you see, until I met you."_

"_I know you don't quite remember. I'm not asking you to. But that night, in Victorian London… I was never going to go back. I had lost so much, the Universe wasn't doing me any favours. I was convinced that was the end of it. Oh, but you were persistent! Dragged me out of my sulking and I didn't even notice until we were already at it, running together. Running away."_

He smiles. She smiles back. But the walls were starting to come down, and she doesn't have it in her to fight them anymore.

"_Thank you, Clara. For everything. I know I don't get to say it as much but I am truly, truly grateful that I found you again_… _or that you found me," _he adds as an afterthought, chuckling to himself._ "It was always you who found me in the end, wasn't it? My impossible girl."_

"_Thank you for being funny, and brave; for knowing exactly what to say and when; for running away with me and holding my hand. Thank you for the many times you chose to save my life, sacrificing your own. And thank you for knowing… always knowing, and understanding. I can't possibly thank you enough."_

"_And I'm sorry that I have to go. I'm sorry that you had to be the last. I'm sorry for all the Wednesdays that I couldn't come; for all the planets you never got to see; for the promise I am failing to keep. But for whatever we've got left, I need this to come from this face. I need you to know that I will never forget you, Clara Oswald, even in the life that comes after this, if there is one. I can only go knowing I've said a proper goodbye."_

"_And if I have to push you away, know that it is more for your sake than mine. The very second you agreed to travel with me, I let you put your life on the line, but I was foolish to do that. Every saved life is a victory, Clara, and yours_… yours_ will be my greatest."_

Blinking rapidly, she gets up from her seat and walks up to him, looking him straight in the eye and searching for any sign of _him _still in there. A sign of his consciousness that will allow her closure, _anything._ She wants to touch his face, and fix his hair (just to see him swat her hand away), but she's afraid of confirmation. She wants to keep pretending. She wills her arms back to her sides.

"_Do me a favour, though? Keep making those soufflés."_

And in that last second, before he could have said his final words, he looks down at her and _she knows it's him. _He can see her through the projection and it _breaks _her. The last of her strength is slipping away, and she trembles. He lifts his hand to touch her face, and gently wipes at the single tear rolling off her cheek with his thumb. She closes her eyes; revels in it, in their last moment together, and then he says it.

_"My hearts are always with you, Clara Oswald. It has been absolutely brilliant with you."_

And he's gone.

Just like that.

So she lets the tears fall.

* * *

"Clara, wasn't it? Clara Oswald?"

"You remember?"

"It seems like most of my memory's come back to me now, yes."

"That's good. What did you need?"

"Well, uh… you don't happen to know how to make a soufflé, do you?"

* * *

**/fin.**


End file.
